Library Pirate: illegale collectievorming ‘gecrowdsourced’

Studieboeken zijn zo duur in de Verenigde Staten dat het geen verwondering mag wekken dat er websites als Library Pirate worden gelanceerd. TorrentFreak belicht die site nog eens en legt uit dat deze community meer doet dan alleen boeken uitwisselen via torrents. Je kunt bijvoorbeeld gebruik maken van de dienst ‘Huur een piraat’:

The initiative the site is running is called “Hire-a-Pirate” and the publishers aren’t going to like it one bit. Many students, on the other hand, won’t share their view. This is how it works.

First, the student lets LibraryPirate know the title of the book they’re looking for. Then, site staff locate the product on eTextbook rental services and advise the student of the current rental price. An example shown to us was a book costing $200, but with a time-limited digital rental copy also available at $118.50.
Participating students are then asked to purchase a gift certificate from the official seller for the full amount ($118.50 in our example) and send the gift code to LibraryPirate. Site staff then rent the book on the student’s behalf.

“After a little bit of this and a little of that, we strip the DRM from the PDF and contact the user letting them know the book is ready via torrent,” says LP’s admin. “The student can now carry the textbook with them anywhere for as long as they want, allowing the PDF to be easily read on any device.”

The idea is that not only does a rental copy get turned into the unrestricted real thing, but students can choose to split the cost of obtaining a book between friends – 10 friends contributing means just $11.85 each. For future students, however, the cost of obtaining the same book reduces to zero.
“Every textbook purchased through the Hire-a-Pirate program will be added to the LibraryPirate torrent database. If you do not have time to scan books, this is an excellent way to help the cause and save money at the same time,” adds LP.

en er is software ontwikkeld die het scannen en uploaden wel heel gemakkelijk maakt:

However, for those who have hard copies already, the time to take a few photographs and a desire to share, LibraryPirate have just released a new tool to make eBook creation a lot more simple. LPBR is a piece of software created by LP member RiddleRiot which turns any digital camera into “a lean mean textbook scanning machine.”

Je kunt er het jouwe van denken, maar dit soort dingen gebeuren, als informatie onbetaalbaar wordt.

Gerelateerd:
Gratis studieboeken downloaden
Librio: studieboeken lenen van andere studenten
Torrent My Books: een nieuwe downloadsite voor studieboeken

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